Customs and Fashions in Old New England

								

pleased to be within at 3 P.M. I would wait on her." This was the same
Madam Winthrop whose attractions had been so completely obscured by the
bright halo which encircled the much-longed-for Widow Denison.



     "Madam Winthrop returning answer that she would be at home, I went

     to her house and spake to her saying my loving wife died so soon

     and suddenly 'twas hardly convenient for me to think of Marrying

     again, however I came to this Resolution that I would not make my

     Court to any person without first consulting with her. Had a

     pleasant Discourse about Seven Single persons sitting in the

     Fore-Seat. She propounded one after another to me but none would

     do."
Now, I think the Judge was very graceful in approaching a proposal to
this widow, for on his next visit he asked to see her alone, and he
resumed the pleasant discourse about the seven widows on the fore seat,
and said:



     "At last I pray'd Katharine might be the person assigned for me.

     She evidently took it up in the way of denyal as if she had catched

     at an opportunity to do it, saying she could not do it, could not

     leave her children."
The Judge begged her not to be so speedy in decision, and brought her
gifts, "pieces of Mr. Belchar's cake and gingerbread wrapped in a clean
sheet of paper;" China oranges; the News Letter; Preston's "Church
Marriage;" sugared almonds (of which she inquired the price). He wrote
her a stilted letter with an allusion in it to Christopher Columbus,
and he had to explain it to her afterward. He gave money to her servants
and "penys" to her grandchildren, and heard them "say their catechise;"
and he had interviews and consultations with her relatives--her
children, her sister--who agreed not to oppose the marriage.
Still the progress of the courtship was not encouraging. Katharine went
to her neighbors' houses when she knew her suitor was coming to visit
her, and left him to read "Dr. Sibbs Bowels" for scant comfort. She
"look'd dark and lowering" at him and coldly placed tables or her
grandchild's cradle between her chair and his as they sat together. She
avoided seeing him alone. She "let the fire come to one short Brand
beside the Block and fall in pieces and make no recruit"--a broad hint
to leave. She "would not help him on with his coat"--a cutting blow. She
would not let her servant accompany him home with a lantern, but
heartlessly permitted her elderly lover to stumble home alone in the
dark. She spoke to him of his luckless courtship of Widow Denison (a
most unpleasant topic), thus giving a clue to the whole situation, in
showing that Madam Winthrop resented his desertion of her in his first
widowerhood, and like Falstaff, would not "undergo a sneap without
reply." He said, in apologetic answer:



     "If after a first and second Vagary she would Accept of me

     returning her Victorious Kindness and Good Will would be very